"Ultra" in name only: the failures of Intel's Ultrabook rules

Ars technica: Ultrabooks were the fashionable product to launch at CES this year. But the new Ultrabooks, meant to be PC competitors to the MacBook Air, seemed suspiciously fat. And heavy. And lacking in solid-state drives. Despite the dimensional and internal differences that place many of these notebooks a cut below the MacBook Air in portability, performance, and quality, they still qualify as Ultrabooks according to Intel's guidelines, suggesting to us that the guidelines need an overhaul.

Intel's official requirements for Ultrabooks are as follows: each model must have a configuration that falls below a $1,000 price point, notebooks with screens smaller than 14 inches must be thinner than 18 millimeters (14-inch-plus screen notebooks can be as thick as 21 millimeters), they must wake from hibernation in no more than 7 seconds, and they must have a minimum 5 hours of battery life, as measured by MobileMark 2007. An obvious flaw with these guidelines: there are no weight requirements, in spite of the importance of light weight to portability. Unsurprisingly, weight is a problem for several models.

It's sad that this bit of marketing hype went so clearly overlooked. Note the "TM" where ever you see "Unltrabook". They are modern laptops. That is all. Nothing new or special. If you need one, buy one...